Batch production is a technique used in manufacturing industries, in which the object is created stage by stage over a series of workstations in a production control system. An enterprise application used in a manufacturing organization generates a production request for each of the object to be created. The manufacturing execution system (MES) manages execution of each of the production request by coordinating with the production control system.
At present lot of initiatives is happening towards integrating all the applications from enterprise applications to MES and from MES to the production control system. However, in the batch production scenario, though ERP-MES integration is realized, MES to real-time batch production control system is a challenge. So far efforts are made to integrate the real-time production control system through Object Linking and Embedding for Process Control (OPC) interface. Still integrating the batch production control system to manage overall life cycle of the batch is not achieved.
Hence, there exists a need for bridging the gap between the MES layer and the batch production control system layer to manage overall life cycle of the batch in the production control system in real time and to increase the flexibility, efficiency and transparency of the industrial production.